Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1887-09-24

Some Particularly Fetching Costumes
A Looking-gIass Which Will Cost S., 900.
The event of the season came off the
other evening at Long Branch when
her Lilyship, Mrs. Langtry, played
in "PeriP before an audience COM
posed of people from all over the
United States, and few from France
and England and, as far as | know,
there may have been some from Green
lands icy mountains. Everybody knows
the play and everybody knows how
famously our new citizen acts in it.
But she quite outdid herself the other
night, not only in her acting, but in the
number of smart gowns she wore Even
the men were rapturous! And really
the toilets deserved it. The most fetch
ing was a gieur rose silk, that famous
shade the men always mean when they
say pink and with which they compare
all the somewhat faded rose shades that
women are greatly given to wearing, ,
! Curious as 1t may seem, material of
this color is very seldom found in this
country, and most of the toilets made of
it come from the workshops of Felix or
Worth. This famous short gown was
draped in the statuesque folds over the
bodice that Mrs. Langtry so much affects
and which is so suited to the style of her
figure. The modiste realized how per-
fectly the rose hue would look in long,
fo1 g.
unmarried by any hitching up or any sug-
gestion of frills and frivols. But the
poet was stronger than the dressmakcr
in the heart of the man, and after seeing
before him this great, beautiful rose he
gave the finishing touch by making the
collar and belt of olive-green velvet-the
leaves of the flower The famous Lang
try jewels were worn and then borne by
sable Mercury to the safes of the West
End Hotel. You see, those rubies and
diamonds are quite too magnificent to
take up their abode in private house,
that is, if the inhabitants wish to leave
it alive the next morning.
All the charming toilets were not on
the stage, for the audience was, to
woman, in full dress. A very chic toilet
made by Mrs. White, the one dressmaker
in New York who makes gowns to suit
the woman and doesn't insist that women
should be remade to suit the gown, was
of heliotrope poplin; it fell in long, soft
lines, and while there was drapery it was
yet so arranged that no fussy effect was
given. A Louis Quinze jacket of the
poplin t1ared away from waistcoat of
cream brocade with tiny white rosebuds
aud Io,, 4
cuffs were held down by tinely-cut steel
point desprit, with putting of hello
trope velvet outlining it, fan of lace
and a cluster of pink rosebuds in front,
gave the finishing touch to the toilet and
made the wearer, so somebody said, look
like Vatican shepherdess. There were
black lace gowns and white lace gowns;
there were white brocades and silks,
dowagers in velvet and brides in their
wedding-gowns, but wherever one looked
one saw pretty gowns, oftentimes pretty
women, but very certainly the frocks
were fetching.
What | call the woman act and what
really isn't acting at all, because it can't
he helped, is at present overwhelming
Long Branch. It's the sort of thing that
makes everybody want to look at the
woman, talk about the woman, hear of
her clothes, her jewels, her preference
for either hot or cold water, what time
she dimes, who makes her gowns, how
many she possesses, what time she goes to
bed and what time she gets up and
whether she arranges her own hair. Mrs.
Cleveland possesses this attraction and
so does Mrs. Langtry-and Mrs. Langtry
has simply and merely by existing
caused this cosmopolitan world to repose
itself at her feet and say, "Kick me if you
will, but when you do it be sure and let
me see the shape of your slipper, and
manage to make visible the name of
the maker on the sole so that | may
know who it is that so exactly manages
to make slipper and stocking match.
One thing among Mrs. Langtry's
belongings that is essentially interesting,
and which required an immense amount
OF taste in collecting, is her silver toilet
set. 1t really is silver, and besides that
it is old silver which it has taken her ten
years to find. There are specimens of
Italian, Spanish, Irish and old English
silver, the latter, by the by, having in
many instances the mark of George
upon it. The pincushion is a most
curious bit-the enormously large franz
ing of silver did its duty in Ireland a
couple of centuries ago on the table of
some rich family as a potato holder, a
large wooden bowl filled with smoking
potatoes being set in the silver frame
that now does service as the holder of
the blue plush cushion, in which are
stuck innumerable costly pins.
The fine cut-glass bottles have their
tops made of curiously engraved old
h-cases-some picked up in this
country, some in that, some found in
pawn-shops and some, for which enor-
nous prices were paid when they were
bought for what they are, veritable an
tiques. Among the smelling bottles the
handsomest has its stopper formed of a
star sapphire framed in diamonds; a big
silver box dedicated to the use of infant
powder, and a puff, biscuit box in the
days of good Queen Anne; smaller box,
holding matches, was in Spain many
years, and four or five brushes have backs
that owe their beauty to the carving of
the old Italian workers. 1t is Mrs Lang
try's pride that all of her silver, and this
is her special fad, is old, the only modern
bits being very handsome candelabra
that was given her last Christmas by her
company, and very pretty hand-mirror
that came to her the year before from
two appreciative members of the "PeriP'
party, "Sir George and the Doctor"
/ am told that Tiffany is bringing all
his ingenuity to bear upon wonderful
mirror that will ba lonno